


Day Eight

by dizzy



Series: Crisscolfer Advent 2014 [8]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M, crisscolfer advent 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 18:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2742011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a zombie apocalypse</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day Eight

“You know,” Darren says, stretched out over a trampoline they assembled in the store room. “I understand the mall logic now.” 

Chris’s stomach growls. The idea of another chocolate bar makes him queasy, so he decides to ignore it. “This seemed like a good idea at the time.” 

Darren sighs. “We’re idiots.” 

“Well, we didn’t have too much to pick from,” Chris says, valiantly trying to defend their poor life choices. 

“The hardware store across the street?” Darren points out. “They probably have a camping and survival section that would have had better food.” 

Chris gets up from his bean bag throne and climbs onto the trampoline beside Darren. He reaches down and grabs Darren’s hand firmly. This is the kind of talk they have about twice a day, just trading off on who fills in what lines. “We have an endless supply of plastic hamburgers and baby food,” Chris points out. “Does the hardware store have that? Also, we don’t have to fight anyone for anything here.” 

They’ve been here two weeks, enough time to board up all the windows and thoroughly block all the doors. They’re _safe_ , and the food situation may be unappealing but they have food and they’re alive and that’s more than a lot of people can say. 

Until the electricity goes out, they’re okay. 

“Come on,” Chris says, struggling to his feet and then jumping around Darren until he’s bouncing up too. “The LEGO fortress needs work.” 

*

“Hey, Chris!” Darren shouts from the back room. “Check it out!” 

They’re only about a fourth of the way through unboxing things in the back. They split them into piles: edible, survival, comfort, and entertainment. 

Given, you know, toy store, the entertainment pile is biggest, but they’ve got a collection of tools and box openers and extra blades, along with some pretty hardcore “toys” that could do some damage if they needed to.

The food is frustrating but at least they have it. Baby food, candy, junk and snacks from near the register. The Easy Bake oven haul is pretty sweet and sometimes just being able to eat something hot is a refreshing change. The cheese pizza kits are their pride and joy, carefully rationed. They only have sixteen of them left, unless they unearth an extra box of them. 

“What?” Chris shouts back, rounding the corner into the stock room Darren’s in. 

He immediately laughs. Darren’s holding up a case of Glee: The Game boxes. 

They open it up and start to play, but after looking at the faces of friends they’ll probably never see again, suddenly it isn’t so fun.

They put that box away and don’t talk about it again. 

*

Clothes are fun. They both had packs with them, but only with a couple of changes of outfit. They’ve scavenged the costumes section for anything they could actually wear and come up shirt. Darren can fit into some of the junior boys shirts but they’ve foregone socks and underwear almost completely, choosing instead to save them for when they might be on the road in colder climates. 

They don’t talk much about leaving, but both of them know they can’t make this last forever. They have the same hope that they figure everyone else in their position has; hide and hope by the time they have to resurface, the zombies will be gone. 

They’re probably only a hundred miles or so from Chris’s town. They’d started out driving but with traffic in Los Angeles completely stalled, they’d been forced to abandon the vehicle. 

Walking was never going to work. Too many undead, half-dead, too many creatures shuffling in all around them. They’re not the action movie heroes, they can’t go in swinging chainsaws and kicking ass. 

They’d die, and they both know it, so they’d found the closest abandoned store and climbed onto the roof. Zombies, not so great at climbing. It worked in their benefit that all of society basically shut down when the third wave hit. The store had been perfectly empty, doors all locked, a shell of what society was just a couple months ago. 

“We’ll be okay,” they tell each other a few times a day, at least. “We’ve got…” 

And then they’ll list a hundred ridiculous things, swapping back and forth. We’ve got Snickers. We’ve got this awesome telescope kit. We’ve got a kickass laser tag set up. 

What they don’t say, and what they actually mean, is: We’ve got each other. 

*

“It’s Christmas tomorrow,” Darren says. 

“No shit,” Chris says. 

They’re staring at their wall of calendars. They had such a stupid fight over which one to use that in the end they tacked up half a dozen of them. Then it looked weird, so they’d gone through and started adding more and more, emptying the entire store front rack. 

It takes them ten minutes working together to make each day that passes off of each and every calendar. 

“We should make a tree,” Darren says. 

Chris hums. He sighs. He looks over at Darren, who has that restless slightly frantic look on his face. Chris knows that well and he knows it’s best to help divert Darren from it before it really hits. 

“Yeah,” Chris says, getting to his feet. “Let’s go make a tree.” 

*

Darren has constructed an entire orchestra of children’s instruments and electronics in his spare time. There are video games and board games and even a few books, though Chris teases they’re more on Darren’s level than his. 

They both go stir crazy in the long stretches of day with nothing to do. 

Chris has notebooks. He fills them with things from his own mind and things Darren says. He writes pages and endless pages about all the people he’s loved in his life, because he doesn’t know how much is out there but he wants some kind of record left. 

Sometimes he lays with his head on Darren’s stomach while he writes. Sometimes he needs to be alone. Some parts are too personal, and some feel like a betrayal to Darren even though he knows Darren wouldn’t see it like that. 

Darren’s not the only person he’s ever loved in his life, but he probably is the person Chris always would have chosen to be with in this kind of situation. That says a lot, but it doesn’t negate the genuine ache Chris feels when he remembers other people’s loved and surely by now lost. 

But he knows Darren has his own moments like that. Chris will catch him playing a song and know it’s about someone else. He knows the photos Darren has in his wallet, the ones that are never too far away from him. He’s not bitter. 

He’s got Darren now. He won that cosmic game, but it’s such a soured feeling. 

Their problem before, in their old lives, was always that things stayed too hectic for them to figure out if they even _could_ be something. 

Now they know they can, but the sacrifices they had to make to find that out weren’t really worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog on tumblr](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com/post/104726249940/crisscolfer-fic-a-day-advent-2014-day-eight)


End file.
